Philadelphia Story

The era of tough competition between large metropolitan dailies has largely passed, because of the demise of many major newspapers. Where nominal competitors do survive, they are sometimes owned by the same company. But Philadelphia is a notable exception. The locally owned Evening Bulletin is now locked in glorious combat with the morning Inquirer, a link in the Knight newspaper chain. Their contest for scoops and readers has produced some of the most colorful and aggressive metropolitan coverage in the country today.

The excitement is of recent vintage. For decades the Bulletin dominated Philadelphia by dint of inertia. Gingerly with officialdom of all stripes, the Bulletin was the paper of brotherly love. It had little to fear from the Inquirer; under the ownership of Walter Annenberg, now U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, the Inquirer specialized in police-blotter scandals well beneath the decorous attention of Bulletin readers. When in 1969 John S. Knight purchased the Inquirer and its sister publication, the afternoon tabloid Daily News, he assigned a veteran Knight Newspapers editor, John McMullan, to clean house. McMullan juggled the staff, poured $18 million into the Inquirer's aged physical plant. Inevitably, McMullan's reign of terror created staff resentment; last October, Knight replaced McMullan with Eugene Roberts Jr., 41, who had been national news editor at the New York Times.

A rumpled, affable North Carolinian, Roberts used the executive editor's chair as a recruiting post, hired a number of staffers from good newspapers. Assistant Managing Editor Steve Lovelady, 30, who came from the Wall Street Journal last December, recalls Roberts' appeal: "He's a very persuasive guy. Anybody who can get someone to move to Philadelphia ..."

Roberts reinforced an investigative team launched by McMullan. Among its coups: a seven-part series on "Crime and Injustice," compiled over seven months with the help of a computer. The series pinpointed inequities in the justice meted out to whites and blacks, rich and poor, and exposed the records of court officials. Roberts also assigned eleven reporters to Lovelady, told him to develop "trend" stories about city and suburban life. Some pieces, such as an item on inflation-frightened couples trying to buy homes while still in their early 20s, have been picked up by papers across the country. The Inquirer also keeps four or five reporters roaming the U.S. for national news.

Thinking Young. These changes at the Inquirer did not go unnoticed at the Bulletin, but not until George Packard became executive editor in June did the paper begin to retaliate fully. A suave Princeton graduate and a Tufts Ph.D. (in international relations) who once worked at Newsweek, Packard, 41, had spent four years as Bulletin managing editor maintaining diplomatic relations between entrenched staffers and the younger, aggressive reporters who wanted the Bulletin to stop being Philadelphia's house organ. When he assumed control, Packard quickly sided with the younger set. He went fishing for new staff, hooked Joel Whitaker from the Wall Street Journal to become the paper's economic news editor. Bulletin investigative reporting has taken on a harder edge in recent months. In May, the paper's food editor revealed that Philadelphia supermarkets were selling contaminated meat. A story in early August charged that New York interests with links to organized crime were taking control of adult bookstores and moviehouses in Philadelphia.

One continuing story--coverage of Philadelphia's tough and colorful mayor, Frank Rizzo--has brought the papers head to head. On August 5, Sunday editions of the Bulletin and the Inquirer carried screaming headlines charging Rizzo with using a secret 33-man police unit to spy on his political foes. The Inquirer story was copyrighted, leading to speculation that Rizzo had tipped the Bulletin about its competitor's scoop, perhaps in the hope of getting better treatment in return.

The Bulletin responded in high dudgeon, pointed out that its story contained the names of police and specific details of past operations--both missing from the Inquirer account. Indeed, the Bulletin followed its story with a series of breaks that drew reluctant admissions from Rizzo, and the Bulletin has since borne the brunt of Rizzo's wrath. During a recent excited phone call, Rizzo asked City Editor John Farmer if he would pursue a tip "that John Farmer is a faggot." Farmer replied, "We certainly would check it out," printed the remark, drew an apology from Rizzo.

Such flare-ups have made good copy, but an essential fact of Philadelphia newspaper life remains: neither paper now sells as many copies as it did three years ago. The middle-class exodus to the suburbs has bitten into the audience. The Bulletin still leads in daily sales (591,970, v. 455,247 for the Inquirer). The Sunday Bulletin still trails the Sunday Inquirer (663,467, v. 812,277). During the first half of this year the Inquirer took a small lead in ad linage, but the Bulletin boasts that it is increasing its share of the market. Neither the Bulletin's parent company nor the Knight chain will discuss specific earnings; both papers are believed to turn modest profits.

The struggle may in time turn out to be one of survival in a shrinking market, but both Roberts and Packard are convinced that better papers will attract more customers. "I think the whole thing is fun," Roberts says. "They [the Bulletin] aren't patsies." Adds Packard: "I am very pleased that the Inquirer has joined the battle, and I'll be pleased as long as we continue to beat them."

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